WHY COPS WANT TO BE COPS

If you are a longtime reader of Key West The Newspaper, you know that, over the years, we published a number of stories about police officers. Although we have certainly published lots of favorable stories about police officers and the police department, most of the stories were about officers who beat the hell out of somebody for no good reason, officers who tried to enforce laws that don’t exist or officers who got caught lying on their police reports. Let’s face it. When police officers break the law, it’s news.

Many think our police reporting has helped make a difference in Key West. Our editorial support is one reason there is a Citizen Review Board (CRB) here, an independent city agency that reviews complaints against police officers. Before the CRB, citizen complaints often just disappeared into a black hole at the police department. We also made new free speech law in Florida. Citizens who file complaints against police officers are no longer prohibited from speaking to the press about their complaints during active investigations.

Because we didn’t beat around the bush when reporting corruption and incompetence in the police department, some readers told us that we were “picking on” the department. Not at all. We were just reporting the truth. For example, several years ago, our critics said we were unfairly picking on Officer Michael Beerbower when we reported that, more than once, he punched handcuffed suspects in the face and, sometimes, after he had punched them a couple of times, he also pepper-sprayed them in the face. But everything we wrote about Beerbower was true– and subsequently, he lost his job and was prosecuted by the state attorney’s office.

Our critics said we were picking on Police Chief Bill Fortune when we broke the story that, years earlier, he had lost his job with the Sheriff’s Department when he got caught having sex with a 17-year-old male police cadet. But we based our story on a 200-page file from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Our critics also said we were “making it up” when we first reported the details of allegations that Police Chief Bill Mauldin had repeatedly sexually harassed his female public information officer. But it wasn’t long before Mauldin resigned.

But all the while we were reporting the “underbelly” police stories, we often emphasized that the vast majority of cops were (and are) good cops. In fact, I once went back and actually did a count. I found that, out of the 80 or so cops on the force, only about a dozen had been the subjects of all the police-related scandal stories over the previous three years. During this period, I began to wonder why these bad-boy cops wanted to be cops in the first place. My suspicion was that many of them grew up as “nobodies” with inferiority complexes. And, as cops, they can by-god order people around and arrest them (or beat them up) if they don’t obey.

As I began to research why cops wanted to be cops, I learned that quite a few studies (the “literature,” as they say in college) have been done on this topic. Becoming a professional bully is just one reason. Other reasons include:

1. To Make Society Better. Some people who decide to join the police force are genuinely good people and sincerely want to help people in their communities and get paid for it. Some of them may feel very passionate about getting criminals off the streets and defending victims.

2. To Have an Exciting Job. For some, the thought of a 9 to 5 job punching a clock or sitting in an office cubicle is too mundane for them to even imagine. These types of people may have grown up watching cop movies and TV shows such as “CHIPS,” “Starsky and Hutch,” or “Miami Vice.” For them, it’s all about the excitement of a job on the streets, catching the bad guys and making busts. These types are sometimes very ambitious, but at the same time, many may become disappointed when they realize it isn’t exactly like what they saw on TV.

3. Power. There are people who seek out a law enforcement job because of the power that comes with it. It is a position of authority. This kind of job will always attract the types who are thirsty for power and control. This doesn’t mean that every cop out there is a power-hungry bully who is looking to victimize people or manhandle them. But it would be impossible to have these types of jobs in a community without attracting a few of these types.

4. To Hide Behind the Badge. It would be very difficult, or impossible, for a convicted criminal to get a job with law enforcement.  But yes, let’s say it– some police officers, once on the force, become criminals. Sometimes, the best place for criminals to hide is behind a badge. If you find that hard to believe, just google “cop is arrested.” Lying on a sworn police report is a criminal offense in Florida. Although it is virtually a way of life for cops to lie on their police reports in Key West, this crime is rarely prosecuted here.

5. Family Tradition. Many men and women become police officers to continue a special tradition in their families.

6. It is Not Particularly Difficult to Become a Cop. You need only a high school diploma to apply. Then, after graduation from a five-month academy, whammo! You’re a cop! You do need to have at least average physical strength. Women are increasingly becoming police officers.

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Dennis Reeves Cooper founded Key West The Newspaper (the Blue Paper) in 1994 and was editor and publisher until his retirement in 2012.